Moments

I'm having a hard time blogging lately and I'm thinking its because I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around what I have been feeling lately.  On one hand there is a lot of stress and fear and worry going on about my mom.  There has been so much stress with work that I have to keep reminding myself that it's not appropriate to break down and start crying, at least not while you are at work.  And then the regular challenges with kids, family, church, trying to keep the house sort of clean, etc.  But on the other hand there is so much joy and happiness and feeling blessed that my mom is getting cancer treatment, grateful for the new role and experiences I'm having at work, happy to just be silly with my family.  What can I say, I've been a little bit of a basket case.

I know that it's not always going to be like this.  Trials come and go, I will get a handle on work, the house will eventually get cleaned, etc.  But at the same time my kids are not always going to be like this either.  My boys are not always going to follow me around crying to be held, or begging me to watch Ninja Turtles or sneaking into my room early on Saturday mornings to try and get in bed with us.

Even though life has been so chaotic it's also been really good.  One good thing about my mom's cancer is that we have all learned to enjoy the moments and to not always look at the big picture.  The moments that are so good make going through the tough times worth it.  I swear we really have been having fun!  And one day (hopefully soon) I will get back to blogging but for now I'm just focusing on the moments.

2015

As it is January 15th I totally know that I am behind the game with the whole new years resolution stuff.  What can I say, the last two months have been pretty much out of control.  But hey, my kids did get fed everyday and we made it to work most days and my house doesn't look like a nuclear explosion went off so I'm counting the past two months as a success. 


2015 is going to be nuts, I can just feel it.  I feel so unsettled and nervous and anxious for this next year.  This last fall was really calm, like way too easy and I swear its the Lord prepping you for the storm.  My mom's cancer has shaken us up in a way that I can't really describe.  She did pretty well with her first treatment but just needs a lot of help.  Between helping care for her, chasing two toddlers, a new calling at church, Matt's calling and work going nutty it is kind of a lot spinning around right now. 


And on top of those things Matt and I are talking about making a pretty big and scary change for our family.  He is jazzed, I'm terrified and the kids screaming and hollering every time we try to discuss it is only adding to my anxiety.  But that's okay, it should be a good change, just a scary one.


As I have been thinking about new years resolutions over the past two weeks the obvious goals keep coming up like don't tell your coworkers to get hit by a bus or limit panic attacks to twice a week or don't quit your job.  But then I decided I should really just focus on goals to help me get through all the changes going on this year.  I'm keeping them so basic and easy in hopes that they will actually help this year go better.  So here we go, 2015 resolutions.

• Attend the temple four times this year.  (Don't judge, baby steps right?)
• Read the entire Book of Mormon
• Exercise
• Make a Shutterfly book of our Disneyland pictures
• Put my phone away when I'm spending time with the kids
• Get a babysitter and go on a date with Matt at least every other month
• Take time for myself each week

These are all things I should be doing anyway and will hopefully help me to handle all this crazy stuff we've got going down this next year.   

Mom Cancer Update #2

Well I guess it's time for another update on my mom.  She met with her oncologist last Friday to set out her cancer treatment plan and it actually went really well.  The doctor decided to put my mom on an aggressive cancer treatment plan as long as her heart was strong enough.  So this means that she will do 8 chemo sessions over 16 weeks which means four months of chemo instead of six!  After that she will do radiation five days a week for five weeks and then finally she would do a pill for five years. 


So my mom went for a heart scan on Monday and everything looks really good.  She had a chemo class last night and this morning she went in early to get her port put in.  After the port is in they will send her to the infusion center to get her first round of chemo. 


My mom is doing actually really amazing all things considered.  She is feeling so much better from her surgery and the past week or so she has been up and doing so much more than she had the first three weeks.  She has had a really good attitude too.  Emily and I went with her to pick out a wig last week and Emily got her a couple of hats to wear too.  My mom has been getting really nervous the last couple of days so its good that they were able to start her treatments today.  She keeps saying that after today she will only have seven treatments left and I think she is just relieved to not be waiting anymore.


The good news too is that my mom loves her oncologist.  The doctor has prescribed her a ton of nausea medication and given her a ton of tips for dealing with the chemo symptoms.  We will see how she actually reacts to the chemo over the next couple of days but she has done really well with coming to terms with everything. 

Mom Cancer Update

I thought I would do an update on my mom.  So she had a mastectomy on Tuesday and as far as the surgery part it went really well.  She had to be at the hospital at 8:00 in the morning and they injected dye into her breast to help determine if the cancer had spread.  Then she and my dad waited until almost 2:00 when they were finally ready to take her back to surgery.  The surgery went good but was long and she didn't get out of surgery until about 6:00 that night.  So it was a super long day for her.


I think I mentioned in my last post that we were hoping the cancer had not spread and that she could just do hormone therapy instead of chemo.  Well the bad part is that they did found cancer in her lymph nodes.  Not good.  They removed three and tested them while she was in surgery and found the cancer so they then removed 22 additional lymph nodes to test and see if the cancer had spread even farther. 


My mom's surgeon pretty much sucked and was not very supportive to my mom or optimistic about the test results.  My poor mom.  Here she had just undergone massive surgery and then told that things were even worse than the doctor had originally thought.  They told my mom to plan on six months of chemo, radiation and then hormone therapy.  My poor mom was devastated by the bad news.


Luckily she got to go home Wednesday afternoon and my dad had all of Wednesday off and could stay with her.  My younger sister, Brittany took off Thursday and today so she has had someone with her every day.  She is definitely a trooper and is doing better than expected but she has been really discouraged.


So she got a call this morning with her test results and out of the 22 lymph nodes that were removed and tested only three came back with cancer cells.  The doctor said that was a great prognosis and that her chances to beat this are really good.  It may have spread a little but with chemo and radiation they should be able to get rid of all the cancer.  So she is at a Stage 2 cancer and will start chemo treatments in four weeks after she has recovered from the surgery.


It still sucks that she will have to go through cancer treatment but she is feeling so much better knowing that the cancer has not spread through her body.  When she called to tell me the news she was just crying because she was so relieved and happy.  Even though the situation is not great it could be so much worse and we are all just grateful for the situation that we have.  It is so much better to know what you are actually up against and have a game plan.  I will keep updating on my blog about her cancer when we know more.

My Mom Has Cancer

My mom has cancer.  Even to type the title of this post seems so surreal.  She was diagnosed three weeks ago and it still doesn't seem like it could be real.  It's breast cancer and she is going in tomorrow for surgery.  Once she has her surgery the doctors will know what stage her cancer is and whats next.  So for three weeks its just been a waiting game and we are all so on edge.

When the doctor first told her he wanted to do a biopsy and test her for cancer he told her not to worry.  He said that he didn't think it was cancer and that 70% of people that have a mass like hers don't have cancer.  Then she finds out that she has two masses and both are cancer and one has broken out of the cell wall and is invasive.  We are just hoping it has not spread to her lymph nodes.

I'm just in shock.  And sick.  And panicked.  And really just about every emotion in between.  It's like, how do you be strong for someone else when you can't even be strong for yourself?  My mom and I were talking on the phone this morning and she starts telling me that she put tags on all the Christmas presents and these presents are in this closet and birthday presents are in this closet and if she isn't here for Christmas please distribute the gifts.  And in my head I know that is crazy talk but its hard to not go there sometimes.  And of course I got mad at her and told her to stay positive but I think she's having a hard time not going there too.

It will be better once we actually know what stage her cancer is and what is next.  Then we will know for sure and our minds can stop going to the worst possible scenario.  It's still scary though.  Cancer is scary, surgery is scary, the unknown is just scary.

Nathan's Birthday

There was a lot of hype leading up to Nathan's 3rd birthday.  I'm pretty sure hes been talking about it since his birthday last year so when his birthday actually rolled around he was in heaven.  Nathan's birthday landed on a Thursday and I had to work so he spent the morning with my mom and the afternoon with Matt's mom.  Then we went to Cafe Rio for dinner (his choice) and then let him open his presents from Matt and I.  It was kind of fun to just have a small family party on his actual birthday and Nathan loved it.

To infinity and beyond!

Fire and Rescue (Fireman's Rescue as Nathan calls it)

 

His favorite present was the ninja turtle

We had Nathan's birthday party that following Saturday and our families came again to celebrate with us.  Originally Nathan wanted a Dusty Crophopper party, then it was Ninja Turtles and a week before the party he insisted that it needed to be a Cars party.  Lucky for me because I had saved all the decorations from his cars party two years ago and so I just pulled everything back out.  Matt and I wanted to make the cake and found a tutorial for an awesome cars cake and everything just came together.

My handsome little three year old with his presents

Trying on his Fireman's Rescue shirt

Celebrating Nathan's birthday was so fun because he was so excited about it.  It was all he could talk about and just loved having everyone come over and celebrate with him.  He sang Happy Birthday to himself and blew out the candle all by himself.  Nathan was all smiles all day and I'm glad he had so much fun at his party.  Here's to another year with you kiddo, I love you more every day!

Halloween

Oh Halloween, it is one of my most favorite times of the year.  This year was especially fun because Nathan was so excited about it.  He started talking about what he wanted to dress up as, um probably about six months ago.  It has ranged from Lightning McQueen (so glad he dropped that) to a Ninja Turtle to Jake and the Neverland Pirates.  I was thrilled when he settled on Woody though, he looked so cute all dressed up.  Nathan was pretty upset that we didn't dress Logan up as Buzz Lightyear but he made a darling Tigger none the less.  

I took the kids to Fotofly's Halloween costume pictures and loved the way they turned out.  They aren't perfect and it was pretty painful to get what we got but I love having some decent pictures of the kids in their costumes.  

 I had originally planned on taking Halloween off of work but decided not to when Nathan's daycare planned a Halloween party.  Nathan had a blast!  They let the kids wear their costumes all day and do Halloween crafts, have treats and go trick or treating.  It was darling, I just love having a good daycare that go above and beyond.

That night Matt's parents and Brittany and Bryce came to our house for Chili and cornbread.  Then everyone except for me, Logan and Matt's dad headed out for trick or treating.  I think Logan was thrilled to get to stay home and crawl around instead of stuck in the stroller and it was nice of Dan to keep me company.

Cutest Tigger I have ever seen

Nathan and Luke so antsy to get out and go trick or treating

Photo bombed by Gavin dressed up as a skunk

Such a cute Woody!  

Annie dressed up in her bee costume

After trick or treating.  They couldn't wait to bust into their candy